


love should make you feel good

by AliuIce0814



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Multi, PTSD, Stark Spangled Banner - Freeform, established bruce/tony, established pillow fort, god i love that ship name, love is watching your buddies' backs, panic disorders, relationships that escape definition, shieldsiblings, steve knows all about that kind of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/pseuds/AliuIce0814
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Bruce catches Tony, who will catch Bruce? Steve doesn't understand where everyone fits in the Avengers, but he knows that they do fit, and that's what matters.</p>
<p>If the war taught him anything, it was to always have his buddies' backs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love should make you feel good

**Author's Note:**

> Stark Spangled Banner. Yup. Only the beginning of a potential relationship, so there's no smut or even kissing, but there are cuddles, and there is love.
> 
> There may end up being a second part to this or a related fic. I haven't decided yet. I have a fic idea in my mind, but it might fit better in one of my other 'verses. 
> 
> Tony has just had an anxiety attack in the moments before this fic, so beware.

            Bruce wraps himself around Tony, a conscious imitation of Hulk’s catch, but that leaves his back exposed. Steve hates the stiffness in his spine, the constant fear of being hit. Bruce and Tony are…something; Steve’s afraid of trivializing their symbiotic relationship with words. Sometimes, though, one is more reliant on the other.

            Like tonight, when Tony’s raw from a meltdown in the shower. Everyone heard him yelling from a floor below. He can’t stand getting water in his face. Steve knows it has something to do with Afghanistan. He doesn’t want to know more than that.

            In a fit of childishness, Clint and Thor built a pillow fort in the middle of the den months ago. It still stands as a testament to either their last slivers of innocence or the Tower’s collective laziness. Tony’s in the middle of the fort, curled in on himself with eyes so dark they look bruised. Bruce, wrapped around him, looks exposed. Like a nerve, the good doctor would say. It kills Steve to see him like that.

            He walks around them in a wide loop so that he approaches them from the front. Tony doesn’t move, not for a sharp word or a smirk. Bruce barely lifts his head. There’s something of the Hulk in his terrible expression.

            Steve doesn’t flinch.

            “Mind if I join you?” he asks, keeping his voice level. He extends one hand, not quite touching Tony. If Stark bats his hand away, calls him an asshole, he’ll have his answer.

            Tony shrinks back against Bruce. Bruce presses his mouth to the top of his head in not quite a kiss. Once Tony relaxes, Bruce nods fractionally.

            “I’m going behind you,” Steve says. “Okay?” Bruce nods again. He watches Steve warily as Steve picks his way through pillows like he’s crossing landmines. He settles behind Bruce in the nest. Steve watches and waits, unwilling to frighten Bruce. The stiff set of Bruce’s shoulders gets to him in the end, though. He digs his thumbs into the knots in Bruce’s muscles, then smoothes his hands along Bruce’s spine. Bruce flinches before he forces himself still.

            After a long time of Steve working out coils of tension, Bruce relaxes.

            On Bruce’s other side, Tony is still paralyzed.

            Steve knows how this looks. He knows how all of them look, the Avengers, when an outsider studies him. He’s seen theories about them in everything from gossip rags to otherwise-serious news journals: they’re queer; they’re fucking each other; they’re engaged in some kind of love hexagon. The last is the furthest from the truth, and Steve knows that he isn’t fucking anyone, at least. He thinks he knows what it means to be queer in modern America, so it puzzles him why the papers seem so bothered by the notion.

            All Steve knows is that he loves his team, the people Thor calls his shieldsiblings with a wry look at Natasha. Steve loves them all unapologetically. They have his back, and he has theirs. They’re the scraps of humanity, broken and haunted and stubborn, and they’re so good. Steve loves his team beyond a doubt, and if that makes him queer or unnatural, he doesn’t give a damn.

            Touch-starved Bruce leans against Steve’s hands. Steve curls himself around him, chest to back. Bruce makes a sound in the back of his throat and burrows closer. “Hey,” Steve says, the word startled out of him. “It’s okay.”

            “What the fuck,” Tony mumbles. He shivers. Steve can feel the sharp movement through Bruce. He hesitates before he drapes his arm over Bruce to touch Tony’s hand. To his surprise, Tony grabs on tightly enough that it hurts. His clammy fingers slide against Steve’s palm. “The fuck, Rogers.”

            “Just watching Bruce’s back, that’s all.” Steve can guess what sarcastic quip Tony wants to make. There’s a kind of sweetness to it, then, when Tony just snorts and leans back against Bruce. Steve squeezes Tony’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. Tell me my mistakes.


End file.
